New thinking on Israel

I’m glad to see many responses to the op-ed on Israel and Palestine. It’s time Americans are educated about what’s going on there. I took a trip to the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and Israel last May with Washington State University education professor Michael Hayes and a group of WSU graduates. We saw and heard similar accounts from Palestinians, Bedouins and Jewish Israelis.

These accounts aren’t hearsay.

As a Jewish person who was raised to respect justice and the environment, I identify with Jewish authors who give us a history of Israel from a non-Zionist perspective, for example historian Ilan Pappe and psychologist Mark Braverman, who spoke in Spokane last year. I need to know what really happened even if it is shocking and destroys a myth.

Saying that Palestinians are dedicated to the extinction of Israel and refuse peace is like saying that Jewish people want to wipe out all Arabs. It’s this kind of thinking that perpetuates violence, separation and doesn’t move us forward out of military and victim mentality. I align myself with all people no matter their race, history or gender, who want to consider our fates on Earth together as equals. Time for a paradigm shift!

Sheila Fox

Spokane